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I'm very curious as to where the words "orientate" and its opposite, "disorientate," came from. They sound incredibly stupid. What was wrong with "orient" and "disorient?" Fewer letters, and you don't sound like a retard when you say them. Dictionary.com even says that the longer versions just mean "to orient" and "to disorient." Everybody wins when you use the shorter form. Using the longer form means you like to kill puppies.

Lots of schools are vying for the “most emphatic rejection” prize. Cornell is leading the race, informing students in consecutive sentences that the electronic rejection they are reading will be confirmed in a follow-up letter that will make the rejection official. We don’t want you. Get it? We really don’t want you. The “snuff out all hopes” double rejection strategy appears to be colleges’ latest attempt to improve their U.S. News & World Report selectivity rating. Two rejections for the price of one. What tipped the scale in Cornell’s favor is that they even include an invitation for you to visit their Web site to get information about applying to transfer to Cornell after your freshman year, so they can reject you again.

I stumbled across a blog post about the OpenMoko platform today. I'd heard of it before, but never really looked into what it was.

I'm not sure I'm quite ready to give up my insistence on a small flip-phone in favor of a more multi-function device, but if I did, this would be what I'd want. Sadly, I'm afraid it won't gain much traction in the US without some kind of deal with a major wireless carrier. US cellular customers aren't used to buying a phone, and then later finding service for it. Hell, most US cellular customers aren't used to buying a phone, period: the phone comes free (or at a very low cost) with a service contract.

And the carriers won't like this phone. The end-user can modify any aspect of the software that runs on it? That's a big no-no. The carriers love their closed systems, and love controlling what you can and can't run on the phone.

But still, I remain optimistic. It might start out as a geek toy, but that's how most popular tech advancements begin to enter the mainstream.